King Fire: Crews make gains, but tough week ahead

Updated 8:25 am, Tuesday, September 23, 2014

A charred car is almost all that remains Friday at the site of a home burned in the King Fire near the town of Icehouse (El Dorado County).

A charred car is almost all that remains Friday at the site of a home burned in the King Fire near the town of Icehouse (El Dorado County).

Photo: Randall Benton / Randall Benton / Sacramento Bee

King Fire: Crews make gains, but tough week ahead

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Firefighters battling the massive King Fire east of Placerville made big gains Monday after the weekend brought cooler temperatures and even light rain to the Sierra.

Crews were able to slow the spread of the blaze, which started Sept. 13 near the foothill town of Pollock Pines and quickly grew into one of the state’s largest and most menacing wildfires. Overnight Sunday the burn spread just 5,000 acres, far short of the tens of thousands of acres it scorched almost daily last week amid fierce, erratic winds.

By Monday, the fire had charred 87,592 acres, authorities said, destroying at least 10 homes and 22 outbuildings as 12,000 homes remained threatened.

“The weather conditions over the past couple of days were really in favor of the firefighters, so we’ve made progress,” said Capt. Tom Piranio, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

But crews are bracing for another tough week. The blaze is just 18 percent contained, and the forecast calls for the mercury to rise and the winds to pick up again.

While the fire has been halted on its south side, near populated areas along Highway 50, it continues to grow north into the more remote Eldorado National Forest and Tahoe National Forest west of Lake Tahoe. Firefighters are hoping to keep the flames within the sparsely populated forestland — and prevent them from spilling closer to the lake.

Power and water agencies operating in the area have reported light damage.

A power line running from French Meadows Reservoir in the Tahoe National Forest was toppled by fire, thwarting electricity production at the lake, according to the Placer County Water Agency. PG&E, which gets power from the area’s reservoirs, reported no service disruptions for customers.

The Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, which uses the reservoirs in the region to generate electricity, shut down three hydroelectric stations last week and asked customers in the capital to conserve while facilities were offline. Two of the three stations have since been reactivated, and only a fiber optic line was reported damaged, according to the district.

“We’re fortunate,” said Scott Flake, district director of power generation. “Most of our power houses and transmission lines have survived so far.”

Sierra Pacific Industries, a lumber company and major landholder in the area, confirmed Monday that many of its plots of Douglas fir, ponderosa pine and sugar pine had been badly burned.

Details of damage to homes have been limited because assessment teams have not been able to reach the properties.

Most of the recreation spots in the forests, meanwhile, have been put off limits.

Trails were closed last week in Desolation Wilderness, a popular hiking and camping area above the shores of Lake Tahoe. Such popular lakes as Hell Hole Reservoir, Union Valley Reservoir and Stumpy Meadows Reservoir have remained inaccessible. Campgrounds along the Rubicon River have been shut down and are believed to have been badly damaged by fire.

Smoke from the blaze continues to be a nuisance, having prompted the cancellation of Sunday’s Ironman Lake Tahoe triathlon as well as air pollution advisories as far away as the Bay Area.

Highway 50, a popular trans-Sierra thoroughfare, has been closed intermittently to give firefighters better access to the flames.

El Dorado County authorities have charged 37-year-old Wayne Allen Huntsman with intentionally setting the fire. Prosecutors have not said how or why the Pollock Pines resident allegedly committed the crime.

Huntsman pleaded not guilty to one count of felony arson. He remained jailed Monday in Placerville in lieu of $10 million bail.

The weekend’s moderate weather also gave crews the upper hand at other major fires in the state. Both the Courtney Fire, which destroyed about 30 homes near Bass Lake (Madera County), and the Boles Fires, which destroyed more than 140 homes in the town of Weed (Siskiyou County), were fully contained.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.